Global Telecom & UCaaS Company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-2023. By February 2024, they needed a hard reset on their global IT cost structure: reduce CapEx by exiting physical datacenters, burn down existing Azure and Google Cloud spend commitments (OpEx), and consolidate a sprawling global infrastructure that had grown to 13 sites across the US, UK, Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Japan. The financial complexity was compounded by the scale — 24,193 VMs, with 16,536 powered on, distributed across sites ranging from 238 VMs in Tokyo to nearly 6,000 in Carrollton, Texas.
Advisory won the engagement on the strength of a differentiated proposal: an all-inclusive approach that combined automated cloud discovery with a partner-led physical datacenter audit via Relltek, covering not just application migration planning but IT asset valuation, hardware disposal, environmental analysis, and supplier consolidation — a scope that no single-vendor cloud advisory firm could match. The Cloud Marketplace financial model — bundling DC leases, supplier contracts, and cloud spend into a single transaction via the Azure Marketplace — was the most innovative element of the commercial strategy.
The $651K SOW covered six workstreams: Cloud Migration Business Case, Physical DC Audit (Relltek), Landing Zone Assessments (Azure + Google Cloud, up to 120 subscriptions), Application Portfolio Rationalization (6Rs), Security & Compliance Gap Analysis, and the Cloud Marketplace financial model. Discovery was automated using Azure Migrate + Dr. Migrate across all 13 sites (up to 15,000+ supported devices), with a four-week continuous scan to baseline inventory before assessment activities commenced.
The core challenge was three separate financial pressures compounding simultaneously: (1) pre-committed Azure and Google Cloud spend that was generating waste because workloads hadn't migrated to justify the commitments — every month of delay was money burned against an OpEx obligation with no utilization; (2) CapEx tied up in physical hardware and co-lo contracts across 13 DC sites in 6 countries — lease expiries, hardware refresh cycles, and EOSL management all requiring coordinated action; and (3) a fragmented supplier landscape with maintenance contracts, lease agreements, and cloud subscriptions all managed separately.
The post-bankruptcy context made velocity essential: every month of deferred action was stranded capital and uncommitted cloud spend going to waste. The client needed a credible migration plan, a financial model that quantified the path to cost elimination, and a strategy that could consolidate the entire financial complexity into a defensible, executive-ready recommendation — fast.
| Site | Location | VMs |
|---|---|---|
| AMER — United States (16,386 VMs) | ||
| AOC | Lebanon, Ohio | 5,720 |
| US1 Intranet | Lebanon, Ohio | 1,804 |
| AOC | Carrollton, Texas | 5,998 |
| US2 Intranet & US2 Cloud | Carrollton, Texas | 2,864 |
| AMER — Mexico (757 VMs) | ||
| DC61-MO1-AOC | Monterrey, MX | 368 |
| DC53-AOC | Mexico City, MX | 389 |
| EMEA — Germany (2,570 VMs) | ||
| AOC Frankfurt | Frankfurt, DE | 1,130 |
| Frankfurt Intranet | Frankfurt, DE | 338 |
| DC32-FR6-AOC | Frankfurt, DE | 764 |
| DC24-HH1-AOC | Hamburg, DE | 338 |
| EMEA — United Kingdom (2,400 VMs) | ||
| DC21-LD3-AOC + Qatar | London, GB (Park Royal) | 1,284 |
| DC29-LD5-AOC + Qatar | Slough, GB | 1,116 |
| APAC (2,080 VMs) | ||
| DC46-ME1-AOC | Melbourne, AU | 679 |
| sng01d02 + DC38-SY5-AOC | Sydney, AU | 1,163 |
| tok02d03 | TBD (Tokyo) | 238 |
| TOTAL | Powered On: 16,536 | 24,193 |
- NPV / TCO analysis: DC costs vs. Azure + GCP migration scenarios
- P&L review, CapEx/OpEx breakdown, maintenance contracts, co-lo costs
- Cloud consumption ramp-up schedule + on-prem cost elimination timeline
- Cloud Marketplace financial model — consolidate leases, contracts, cloud spend into single transaction
- Executive presentation with findings, cost analysis, and next-phase proposal
- Comprehensive asset inventory — configurations, ownership, condition, maintenance contracts
- Site plans, decommissioning strategy, and data sanitization blueprint for all 13 sites
- Environmental conditions analysis — temperature, air quality, sustainability impact
- IT asset market valuation and disposal strategy (maximize recovery value)
- Supplier consolidation recommendations and sustainability dashboard
- Azure and Google Cloud landing zones (up to 120 subscriptions)
- Gap analysis vs. current Microsoft and Google standard recommendations
- Security framework, governance, data protection, network/DNS/connectivity review
- AD/identity management, patching, monitoring, backups, 3rd-party tooling
- Decision: keep / remediate / rebuild each landing zone, with target architecture and cost estimates
- Azure Migrate + Dr. Migrate automated discovery (up to 15,000+ devices, 4-week scan)
- Gartner 6Rs disposition per application (Retain / Replace / Rehost / Replatform / Refactor / Retire)
- Internal business workloads prioritized first; external customer systems follow
- Notional migration wave plan with complexity grouping
- Target cloud platform decision tree (Azure vs. GCP per workload type)
- IAM, logging/monitoring, infrastructure security, data protection, incident response
- Patching, authentication, account management, data classification review
- Gap analysis with architectural recommendations and tool enhancement opportunities
- Future-state security reference architecture improvements
- Follow-on SOW proposal for high-severity findings remediation
- All-inclusive financial model: cloud commit + DC lease payments + supplier contracts → single Marketplace transaction
- Designed to maximize cloud commit utilization and absorb expenses into committed spend
- Targets: Azure Marketplace (primary); Google Cloud Marketplace (secondary)
- Aligns the client's IT cost structure with long-term hyperscaler commitment obligations
- Simplifies financial operations — one transaction, one vendor relationship
| Role | Rate (Offshore) | Hours | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Advisory Consultant | $278/hr | 300 | $83,400 |
| Senior FinOps Consultant | $259/hr | 480 | $124,320 |
| Solutions Architect (Cloud, Security, Data) | $278/hr | 480 | $133,440 |
| Cloud Engineer | $294/hr | 40 | $11,760 |
| Discovery Tool Installation Engineer | $37/hr | 260 | $9,620 |
| Engagement Manager | $204/hr | 240 | $48,960 |
| IT Device & Maintenance Consultant (Relltek) | $125/hr | 360 | $45,000 |
| Per-DC Assessment Fee (up to 15 racks) × 13 sites | $11,250/site | 13 sites | $146,250 |
| Estimated Labor Cost | $602,750 | ||
| Apollo Discount | $(36,165) | ||
| Estimated Total Labor (less discount) | $566,585 | ||
| Dr. Migrate Licensing (3 months, 15,000+ servers) | $84,623 | ||
| Total Estimated Engagement Cost | $651,208 | ||
The assessment SOW is the entry point to a multi-phase migration program. The deliverables — cloud business case, application wave plan, landing zone gap analysis, and physical asset disposal strategy — are specifically designed to justify and scope the migration execution engagement. Every workstream output is a direct input to a follow-on SOW: the business case drives the financial authorization, the wave plan drives the migration PS scope, the landing zone remediation drives a cloud platform build-out, and the security gap analysis drives a remediation SOW.
The unique angle here is the Cloud Marketplace consolidation strategy. The client has pre-committed Azure and Google Cloud spend that isn't being utilized. A follow-on engagement structured as a Marketplace transaction — absorbing migration PS, managed services, and cloud consumption into a single committed spend vehicle — turns a financial liability (stranded commits) into a migration accelerant. This is the kind of creative financial structuring that wins deals in post-restructuring situations and is difficult for competitors to replicate.
Engagement Scoping & Commercial Strategy
- Authored the SOW and commercial proposal — structured the six-workstream model, team composition, and pricing for a $651K engagement targeting a Fortune 500 post-restructuring situation
- Designed the Cloud Marketplace financial model strategy — the "all-inclusive approach" to consolidate DC leases, supplier contracts, and cloud commits into a single Azure Marketplace transaction
- Secured the Relltek partnership for physical DC assessment coverage — differentiating the proposal beyond standard cloud advisory scope
- Structured discovery tooling approach (Azure Migrate + Dr. Migrate) for 15,000+ device coverage across 13 global sites
Delivery Oversight & Technical Direction
- Led engagement planning and stakeholder alignment across the client's global IT and finance teams — coordinating access and data collection across 13 DC sites in 6 countries
- Directed the cloud migration business case: P&L review, CapEx/OpEx decomposition, Azure vs. GCP TCO scenarios, and migration ramp-up financial modeling
- Oversaw landing zone assessment scope — Azure and Google Cloud gap analysis against current standard recommendations, covering 120 subscriptions across both platforms
- Defined the application portfolio rationalization approach and wave plan methodology for prioritizing internal business workloads ahead of external customer-facing systems